Check out the "Mystery/Fun Photos" section for one early 20th century genealogist (Eben Lewis Barnum) who poked fun at the side effects of this hobby.

Yesterday I was reading An Ancient Irish Parish Past and Present, Being the Parish of Donaghmore, County Down, by J. Davison Cowan (London: Nutt, 1914), digitized by the University of California Libraries, and on pages 105-108 the author gave some examples of colloquialisms of his part of the county. One was "'lusty' - corpulent." William Bradford described John Howland as a "lusty young man" and everyone assumes he meant something along the lines of "lively." Maybe he simply meant "fat," "large," or "bulky."

I came across some interesting pictures while looking for some info on Chatham, MA (Cape Cod) in a digitized book. (Which means the images are blurry, but better than nothing.) Check out the "Mystery/Fun Photos" section for images of ancestors who knew how to party hearty, 1912 style.

Borrowing from Abigail Adams, mea culpa for leaving off the wives who died early but were known to be the mother of surviving Mayflower offspring. I remembered Mary Brewster, but probably because I'm related to her. However, I forgot Mary (Norris) Allerton and probably some others. So, I will go fix those and hopefully catch them all. Remember, not every wife on the Mayflower was the mother of children who survived. I will attempt to backtrack and add in those who were. Sorry!

This web site is all about figuring out what our pilgrim forebears might have looked like based on their descendants' features and descriptions. You will have to scroll up and down a bit, but for now you can catch a Gen. 6 father (Benjamin Shurtleff 2d, 1711-1788) and eight of his adult children, five males and three females, on the Allerton page. The father is a well-kept 65, three sons are in middle age, one daughter is likely in her mid 60s, and everyone else is quite old but you can still look for similarities in facial features and coloring if you squint a bit and use your imagination. Unfortunately the females are all wearing caps of that period so you can't tell what their hair color and ear shape/size was, except for Hannah, roughly the same age as her father in his painting. Note that both still had dark hair. With the elderly men you can't tell hair color but note the absence of male pattern baldness. They appear to have dark hair, though one, Samuel, might be a redhead. About half of the clan has a long narrow nose and a narrow chin, but the others have a more squared-off chin. Their mother, Abigail (Atwood) Shurtleff (1755-1826)  is in the same book on the same page (76) as her husband so you can compare her picture with theirs, too. Here she is, thoroughly capped, but you can make out dark eyes and a longish nose and rounded chin. This was painted by Ethan Allen Greenwood in 1813, when she was about 58:

The image is small but you will see a Gen. 9 father, John Calvin Goodspeed, and three of his five Gen. 10 Rogers children: Judson M., George L., and Lois Albina Goodspeed, circa 1870-72.

I am 3 days late in wishing "cousins" to the north a happy Canada Day but to those in the USA, celebrate 240 years of Independence and give a thought to the many people who made that possible. God bless the USA!

The Howland-Tilley section now sports a group photo spanning only 2 generations but 6 individuals. Henry H. Pidgeon and his 5 children (via two wives) are Gen. 9/10 and 10/11 descendants of John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley (and her parents, John Tilley & Joan (Hurst) (Rogers) Tilley.

This message is particularly for Warren descendants but anyone else proud of their Cape Cod forebears or Mayflower Descendants are welcome to get in in the act. Read Alvan Graham Clark's writeup in the Warren section for the Mayflower connection and follow the link to the article about the Clark Refractor at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ (where Pluto, the planet not the dog, was discovered.) It was commissioned by Percival Lowell in 1895 and it (along with other telescopes made by Alvan Clark & Sons) helped him do important work in the observation of Mars and it was later used to examine other celestial bodies as part of Lowell's mission to study relatively close-in portions of our universe (including double planets and the expanding nature of the universe.) The Clark Telescope and its building are part of what put the Lowell Observatory on the National Register of Historic Places. You can visit it most evenings as part of the tours of the Lowell Observatory.